Nitish Mishra

Patna, April 28: Bihar has become the first state in the country to decide to sign an agreement with Transparency International India (TII) to check corruption in the public contract and procurement system.

The rural development department of the state has taken the lead on this front. It has decided to sign the “integrity pact” with TII next month.

“We will be singing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with TII in May for implementing the norms of the integrity pact in the procurement work of our department,” Bihar rural development minister Nitish Mishra told The Telegraph. He said he got the inspiration to take this step from chief minister Nitish Kumar, who is determined to put an effective check on corrupt practices in the state.

Integrity pact is a tool developed by Transparency International in 1990s to help governments, businesses and civil societies to fight corruption in public contract and procurement. It is a process of signing an agreement between government/government departments and all bidders for public sector contracts.

It contains rights and obligations to the effect that neither side will pay, offer, demand or accept bribes, or collude with competitors to obtain the contract.

The Central Vigilance Commission recommended adoption and implementation of the integrity pact for all major procurements of government organisations in 2007.

Sharing details of the likely implications of the move, Mishra said all the contractors bidding for works of the department would have to follow the norms of the integrity pact.

“We on our part will introduce complete transparency in the procurement process. One of the steps would be to bring the detailed information about the bidding process in the public domain,” he added.

Mishra said the rural development department principal secretary would be entrusted with the responsibility of reviewing the functioning of the system from time to time. He would ensure that all the norms of the integrity pact were being followed.

The rural development department minister said detailed guidelines would be sought from TII from time to time for implementing the norms of the integrity pact because it would be a new thing for his department.

Praising the initiative taken by the rural development department of Bihar, TII executive president Anupama Jha told The Telegraph over phone: “Around 40 public sector units in India have signed the integrity pact but this is for the first time that a state government has shown interest in following these norms.”

She said TII would develop a mechanism, which would allow the state rural development department as well as the bidders to approach it in case of violation of norms after signing the agreement.

One of the major features of the integrity pact is the role of the independent external monitor (IEM), who not only keep tabs on the implementation of the pact but also does the appraisal work.

In case of the rural development department, the TII is working out the details for roping in the services of an IEM for monitoring the agreement it would sign with the department.

As far as impact assessment of the implementation of the integrity pact norms is concerned, the work would be carried out by an agency selected by TII.

“For now, we have hired a Delhi-based organisation to do this work in the public sector units which have signed MoUs with us. In case of Bihar also we would have an agency in place for carrying out this work,” Jha said.

TII is a globally known organisation working to weed out corruption from the society. India is perceived to be one of the corrupt nations and ranks 87th among the 178 countries in TII’s corruption perception index released in 2010.